Publishing scientific research: is there ground for new ventures?

This paper highlights some of the issues that have been reported in surveys carried out by the RIOJA (Repository Interface for Overlaid Journal Archives) project (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ls/rioja). Six hundred and eighty three scientists (17% of 4012 contacted), and representatives from publishing houses and members of editorial boards from peer-reviewed journals in astrophysics and cosmology provided their views regarding the overlay journal model. In general the scientists were disposed favourably towards the overlay journal model. However, they raised several implementation issues that they would consider important, primarily relating to the quality of the editorial board and of the published papers, the speed and quality of the peer review process, and the long-term archiving of the accepted research material. The traditional copy-editing function remains important to researchers in these disciplines, as is the visibility of research in indexing services. The printed volume is of little interest.